Auschwitz-Birkenau

This was the real reason for our trip to Krakow. I have been wanting to visit for several years, but had not quite got round to it. When my mother asked would I take her it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is about 40 miles into the forest, about one and a half hours drive from Krakow. You could not get a bigger contradiction: unspeakable atrocities carried out in beautiful picturesque surroundings. The reason for this soon became clear: The Nazis wished to keep their atrocities very secret.
Everyone has heard the maxim "no birds sing at Auschwitz." This saying is true, I heard no birds sing, despite being in the middle of a forest.
Over one million one hundred thousand people died at the hands of the Nazis in the death camp that is Auschwitz. That is a known figure it could have been as high as one and a half million, nobody knows the exact number as the Nazis destroyed the records.
On the trip itself, nothing was hidden from us, the true extent of the atrocities were put right in front of us.
We saw the barracks where the prisoners were held, and their unspeakable living conditions, the punishment blocks, the gallows and the wall where prisoners were shot. We saw the room where experiments were carried out on fertile women to find the "best method" of sterilisation. We went into the gas chambers and saw the furnaces. 700 people at a time were placed in a room not much bigger than a landing of a semi detatched house, and they took up to an unimaginable horrific twenty minutes to die.
We also saw some of the most shocking exhibits of all: We saw some of the seven tons of human hair that was found, property stolen from the victims on their arrival including artificial limbs, glasses, crutches, and most distressing of all, children's toys. We were shown the zylon B capsules used to gas the victims, and the containers the capsules were stored in.
Everybody was visibly moved by what they saw. It was shocking, but it needed to be seen.
We then went two miles further to Birkenau. This was a concentration (slave) camp as opposed to the death camp at Auschwitz.
The prisoners were made to work hard for twelve hours a day, and get by on starvation rations of 1500 calories a day. They slept 400 at a time in dormitories that were designed as stables for 56 horses. We saw the "toilet facilities"- holes in stone slabs which the prisoners were allowed to use for no more than ten minutes a day, before and after they went to work. There was no separation, privacy or dignity, men women and children had to use the latrines at the same time.
At the end of the war, when the Germans knew they were losing, they tried to burn Auschwitz down to try to hide their atrocities from the world. They failed, and the world could witness their atrocities.
We should never forget, or allow things like this to ever happen again, but sadly, and to the worlds shame, it does in places like the Balkans and Eritrea. When will the world ever learn?
I feel a better person for visiting, I felt I needed to show solidarity with the holocaust victims. On a positive note, I was very pleased to see so many young people visiting.
On a slightly lighter note, I have now made my pilgrimage, I am glad I did, but I can head for the beach next year!!!